modernization

Department of Veterans Affairs officials say they want to end their massive benefits backlog for disabled veterans by next year, but a new study says progress on the initiative has stalled. Read More »

After years of speculation and rumors, in a move that surprised absolutely no one, Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin announced that the Department of Veterans Affairs is moving to Cerner Millenium to replace its home-grown VistA electronic health record. On the surface this makes sense, because of DoD’s move to Cerner in 2015 and an overarching VA desire to move from custom software to COTS software. However, SecVA’s decision is only the beginning of an extremely long path, as DHA is finding with its MHS GENESIS project. Moreover, VA has a broader scope than DHA. Unlike DHA, whose primary goal is to provide a medically ready fighting force, VA handles a slew of additional tasks, including...

Emergency operators in New York City have been forced on at least three occasions since Wednesday to resort to using pen and paper to record 911 calls and dispatch workers after their computer system went dark. Read More »

Ramping up investments in digital radiography and medical imaging systems, the U.S. Department of Defense awarded a one-year $70.2 million contract extension to imaging provider Carestream Health. Read More »

The Department of Defense isn’t taking its spate of Congressional spankings lying down. After more than a year of continuous criticism over its lack of progress on EHR interoperability during its will-they-won’t-they romance with the Department of Veterans Affairs, a series of optimistic press releases show the DOD’s commitment to rehabbing its image while it seems to finally be getting the project on track. Read More »

Senior officials from the departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs assured Congress July 10 that they are closing in on solutions that will alleviate the backlog of veterans' health benefit claims and streamline processing of current and future claims. Read More »

The Department of Defense may be flirting with commercial EHR vendors, but they’re not ready to commit to an off-the-shelf product just yet. In a request for information released this week, the Defense Health Agency indicated that it is looking for support of its Armed Forces Health Longitudinal Technology Application (AHLTA) through 2018 [...]. Read More »

The Defense Department's senior official leading the competitive acquisition to modernize its health care management system has said he’s committed to ensuring the best value for taxpayer dollars while safeguarding quality of care. Read More »

The role of technology in sub-Saharan Africa is growing. An emerging information technology (IT) ecosystem is reinforcing regional trends in business, investment, and modernization. There is a growing patchwork of entrepreneurs, startups, and innovation centers coalescing from country to country. Most discussions of the origins of Africa’s tech movement circle back to Kenya, which was home to several major technological innovations between 2007 and 2010. This innovation inspired the country’s Silicon Savannah moniker, and has provided an example for other African countries to follow.

The CIOs of the Military Health System (MHS) and the US Navy, David Bowen and Commander Cayetano S. Thornton, took the stage at the Government Health IT Conference and Exhibition this week to discuss EHR adoption, modernization, and the swirling questions surrounding the Department of Defense’s efforts to find a suitable EHR to meet their needs. Read More »

During a July 10 joint hearing of the House Veterans Affairs and Armed Services Committees, VA and Defense Department officials laid out plans to continue pursuing two separate electronic health record solutions with the ability to interoperate in the "near term." Read More »

A redesign of OpenStreetMap.org has just gone live. Since we kicked off with State of the Map US in San Francisco, we have been working closely with the OpenStreetMap community to implement this new design that is more focused — a better experience for newcomers and creates more space for the map. Read More »